


A day in Crime Alley

by Pinepickled



Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU, Midnighter (Comics)
Genre: Awkwardness, Fluff, Food, Gotham City - Freeform, M/M, Slight Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-25
Updated: 2020-09-25
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:29:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26653714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pinepickled/pseuds/Pinepickled
Summary: Midnighter takes a trip to Gotham and encounters a certain cloaked hero.
Relationships: Midnighter/Jason Todd
Comments: 4
Kudos: 25
Collections: DCU Rarepair Exchange 2020





	A day in Crime Alley

**Author's Note:**

  * For [join_the_conga](https://archiveofourown.org/users/join_the_conga/gifts).



Midnighter stared into the gloom of Gotham, contemplating if this case was worth it. The bats were a tricky bunch, detached and creepy on their best days. There were legends everywhere about them, about the little boy who carried swords and fought like a demon, about the eldest child who flew through the sky and was not bound by the human body, about the patriarch of their kind who never stepped out of the shadows, whose horns stood tall and proud, a beacon of hope for Gotham’s people, feared by all else. Midnighter grinned in amusement and stepped over the boundary. Why not run around with a few bats for a while? Everyone else was just a coward.

Not five seconds after Midnighter had stepped into Gotham’s borders, a blur of black and blue sprung over to greet him. 

“Hello, stranger!” Nightwing said, a friendly smile on his face and weapons put away. Midnighter guessed that he wasn’t viewed as an enemy here. Either that or he wasn’t viewed as a threat.

“Hey, Nightwing. Is it okay for me to work here?” Midnighter asked, doing his best to be polite. Nightwing tilted his head, grinning.

“Oh, well that depends! What are you working on?” Nightwing said, an edge to his friendly voice. Midnighter didn’t doubt for a second that this twink could beat him to a pulp if he so chose. It would be best to tell the truth, for now.

“There’s this dude I’ve been tailing for a while, and I think he’s taking up space in your lower districts, Crime Alley I believe it’s called?” Nightwings' expression changed minutely before going back to the friendly smile. Midnighter wanted to huff in frustration. If all the bats were as closed off like this, Midnighter might as well have been working with a brick wall.

“Well, I’m afraid this is where we part then! The section you’re interested in is the Red Hood’s, so I have no business being there. Be warned though! If you’re up to something bad, any one of us would just arrest you, but Red will kill you. Good Luck!” With his final words, Nightwing swiftly ran up a building and disappeared, leaving Midnighter alone. He wanted to laugh. Gotham and her heroes were definitely something.

~~~~~~~

Something that was apparent right off the bat was that the Red Hood was either lucky or very good at his job. The streets were not clean by any means, nor did the people look particularly well, but there was none of the gang fights, heavy poverty, and drug usage Midnighter was used to seeing in poorer areas like this. The trash lining the streets was likely due to Gotham’s government neglecting this neighborhood, and the poor health of the citizens was another fault of the government, yet everywhere he looked the people were managing just fine.

Every once in a while, a kid about highschool age would come around and tidy up the street, everyone that came and went making the area a bit cleaner. On each corner was a small tent with a red bat symbol painted on, where Midnighter caught glimpses of people with stethoscopes around their necks and needles in their hands tending to some of the sick people. Their scrubs were likely not as clean as they should have been, and their instruments looked cheap, but it was impressive indeed. This community may have been abandoned by the government, but it was certainly not collapsing. Midnighter had a feeling that the Red Hood was more than some bloody and reckless tyrant that the rumors made him out to be. 

Midnighter’s hair stood out on end, and he looked up just in time to see a scarlet mask peek over a rooftop. The area around the man was warped, and Midnighter could see the shadows twisting toward the man. If the red mask, hood, and the way the people below him did not seem alarmed but rather relieved was not enough to convince him that this was the Red Hood, one of the damned princes of Gotham, then the stark bat symbol on his chest was, painted red like an open wound. Midnighter grinned up at the bat, and the Red Hood jumped down from his perch. Before either man could get a word in, a small child came running up to the bat.

“Mr. Hood, look! I got 97% on my English test! I can take the regular classes now!” The boy had a small accent and seemed excited to tell the hero of his accomplishment. What surprised Midnighter more than the casual way the boy ran up was when the Red Hood gently ruffled the boy's hair, low, gravelly voice congratulating him. After the boy was satisfied, he ran off in the same direction he came, back to his mother’s arms. The Red Hood slowly turned back to the man in front of him, his red muzzle and black eye mask hiding any emotion that could be shown.

“What brings you here?” The man asked. Midnighter was going to have to do more research on the bats because all he’d discovered until now had implied the bats were human. This was no human.

“A case. Someone I've been following for a while has decided to take root here and I wanna make sure he’s not causing any trouble.” The Red Hood tilted his head and then nodded. He ran up the building once more, and then came back down with someone hogtied in his hands.

“This is the only person that has come to my alley recently.” He said, dropping the hog-tied man in front of Midnighter. Midnighter opened a portal under the man and watched him fall through, and was about to leave when a gloved hand grabbed his arm.

“Would… you like to stay? For food?” The Red Hood asked, almost sheepishly. Midnighter heard his stomach grumble and nodded with only a second to doubt his decision. What did weird bat-creatures eat anyway?

Turns out weird bat creatures like to eat at an old Armenian grandmother’s house. Red Hood had rushed him inside the small place, muttering something about being late for lunch, and had sat him down at a long picnic table that had been crammed inside a room filled to the brim with people. The Red Hood had squished him against the wall, having no room for any modicum of personal space. Soon, hot plates of rice, kofte, kebab, and other condiments were placed all over the table as everyone began digging in. 

Out of curiosity, Midnighter kept a close eye on the Red Hood, wondering what the man was going to do, as he was wearing a muzzle and pretty incapable of eating. It shouldn’t have surprised Midnghter as much as it did that he just took the muzzle off, black eye mask still in place. What really surprised Midnighter was just how young he was. The Red Hood could barely be twenty, yet Midnighter had thought he was talking to a grown man. The Red Hood was just full of surprises. The younger man noticed him staring, and gave him a confused look.

“What? Do you not like the food?” He asked, his voice completely changed. There was probably some sort of software in his muzzle for that effect. Midnighter could only shake his head, amazed. If the third eldest bat was twenty at most, how young were the others? Did the bats even follow human aging systems or was the kid, in reality, two hundred instead of twenty? So much about the bats and Gotham was so strange, and that was coming from Midnighter of all people. Out of the corner of his eye, Midnighter saw the Red Hood struggling with his fork, wincing at every movement. Midnighter honed in on the younger man's shoulder, and saw just the tip of bandages. The kid couldn’t use his other arm to eat because it was squished between himself and Midnighter. That was unacceptable.

“Here kid, sorry about that,” Midnighter said, shifting so that one leg was out of the table and one under, giving the kid plenty of room. Apparently, room at this table was highly coveted, so not seconds later was the Red Hood pushed into Midnighter once more. The older man caught the barest hint of a blush on the Red Hood’s face and chuckled. These bats were a funny bunch.

~~~~~~~~~

Midnighter stood on the border of Gotham, preparing coordinates to leave when Red Hood spoke once more.

“If you come to Gotham again… my alley is always open.” He said, and then ran off into the ever-present shadows of Gotham. 

Midnighter would just have to visit the shadowy city more often then.

**Author's Note:**

> I actually really liked this submission, and I hope you do too! Kudos and Comments are always welcome :D


End file.
